


fleeing tumblr dump: League Variant

by Wildcard



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, fleeing tumblr dump, lots of AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 00:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 13,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard/pseuds/Wildcard
Summary: Fics I originally posted on askdragonbladetalon are being ported over here. Chapter titles will indicate pairings.





	1. Chapter 1

Azir sets down his quill and watches Talon for a few seconds. The assassin is wrapping cloth around himself, swathes of red silk that he drapes over his shoulders and head. The merchant who brought in the ‘offering’ to the Emperor’s Court could not have predicted that it would be a Noxian assassin who’d attire himself in the cloths and jewelry. Golden chains, bedecked with coins, hang heavily around Talon’s neck and drape temptingly over the jut of his hipbones.

“Have you ever considered settling down?” Azir asks.

“What, like getting married, having kids, quitting being an assassin?” Talon arches an eyebrow at his reflection, fiddling with the drape of the headscarf.

“No. I meant working for one employer instead of several.”

“You mean like when Marcus forced me to work for him and the Noxian High Council?” Talon’s eyes narrow, his tone dangerous and dark enough that Azir can feel his own talons stiffening. “Fuck no. I  _like_  my freedom.”

“…Very well.” Azir says nothing more for a little, waiting for the tension to seep out of the sharp shoulderblades of Talon’s muscled back. When the assassin appears absorbed once more in creating his new persona, Azir asks, “How well do you know other assassins?”

“Depends on how good they are.” Talon’s voice is a little distant, the assassin busy comparing the effects of various silks draped over his face in the style of his scarf. “No point getting to know people that aren’t good enough to survive. The lower and middle ranks, not so much. I know mostly the people that operate on the same level as I do. Not that there even are many people as good as I am.”

Talon adorns his arms with a couple of gold bracelets and poses with a hand on his hip. “How do you think this looks?”

“As if you’re a courtesan,” Azir says, not even pausing to think.

Talon is still for a second, then laughs and raises his arms above his head to jingle the gold together. “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment. But why did you ask about other assassins?”

“Would any of them consider becoming Shurima’s Court Assassin?” Azir asks and is gratified to see Talon’s hands still, the assassin turning away from the mirror to meet Azir’s gaze. Talon’s eyes narrow again as he tips his head to a side in an almost bird-like gesture, arms loose at his sides.

The quick calculations that flash across Talon’s eyes are almost visible to Azir – and to think, he’d once thought the assassin opaque and difficult to read! Amazing what familiarity achieved.

“No,” Talon says finally. “Because the problem with assassins at  _my_  level is that they’re all bound to places already. Jhin works for the Ionian Council. Katarina works for the Noxian High Council. Zed works for Ionia – and more importantly, he runs the Order of Shadows. He won’t leave them behind and he can’t transplant the entire Order to Shurima.”

He runs his hand through his loose hair, knocking the scarf back.

“You were right to choose me. I’m the only one that isn’t already affiliated with a country.”

“That isn’t why I asked you, Talon.” There’s a sinking sensation in the pit of Azir’s stomach, as if he’s eaten a stone that’s pushing its weight down against his bones. All the best assassins except Talon are taken, really? A Court Assassin is a vital necessity for an Emperor and while he hadn’t been foolish enough to assume Talon would accept, he had at least hoped… “I asked you because I trust you – because we’re friends.”

Something odd flickers across Talon’s face, his eyebrows drawing together even as his gaze lowers. The heat has Talon’s cheeks flushed but the color seems to darken at those words; it’s an odd reaction and one that Azir stores away for future consideration.

“I’m flattered,” Talon says eventually, meeting Azir’s gaze again with a half-smile. “But I’m also selfish. I make a mint every mission I take. I don’t think you can match that for a Court Assassin.”

“No,” Azir has to admit. “I can’t. Our money is needed for rebuilding Shurima and taking care of the people. But a Court Assassin would have lodgings, food, clothing, weapons and a stipend that’s paid every month regardless of whether he’s sent to kill anyone or not.”

Azir  _knows_  Talon. The assassin has no interest in fancy jewelry or ostentatious displays of wealth. However much Talon is earning per mission, the Emperor is sure that most of it goes unspent. A child used to starvation cannot break his habit of frugality easily and Azir has seen Talon haggle in the marketplace over a handful of dates when he could afford to buy the whole stall.

The Empire cannot pay Talon his true worth but neither does Talon need so much money. What needs he does have, Azir will ensure they are fulfilled.

“He’d also get the same stipend regardless of how many missions he gets per month,” Talon points out. “And since the main threat to Shurima is Noxus, you’d be sending me against Noxians.”

Me, not he. Talon is already considering if he would take that role.

Azir smiles and picks his quill up again.

“You’re mostly hired by Noxians to kill other Noxians already,” he points out. “The only real difference would be who’s paying you.”

“True.” Talon says and his half-smile blooms into something sharper.


	2. Approaching Extinction (Talon/Vlad)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vladimir's set to be executed tomorrow. Talon won't accept that.

"Tomorrow is the execution, isn’t it?”

Silence stretches on so long that Vladimir almost thinks that Talon won’t answer. The assassin’s staring at the floor instead of at him, fingers curled around the petricite bars of the cage as if Talon could pull them apart with sheer strength alone.

Heh. Even if he were going to betray his siblings so, Talon doesn’t have the raw strength necessary. Sion would’ve, Darius might’ve, but they’re all dead. From his cage, Vladimir saw them executed.

“Yeah,” Talon says finally, voice subdued and soft. He looks up for a second, making brief eye contact, and the scarlet splash of his irises is dark with guilt. “They want me to silence you before they crush you between petricite rocks.”

Vladimir considers that dispassionately. He’s survived drowning, burning, beheading and throwing himself from Darkwill’s tower. Petricitie suppresses magic, as does Talon’s silence; he supposes that it’s possible that this might kill him. Might.

What’s more interesting is the way that Talon clearly believes that this will end Vladimir. His shoulders are slumped, his knuckles white from how tightly he’s holding the bars. The guards who should be watching the cell are nowhere to be seen, either bribed or dead (more likely the latter, Vladimir assumes, Talon doesn’t seem the type to waste money on bribes) and for a little while, Vladimir and Talon are alone.

“Will you?” Vladimir asks and it amuses him, just a little, that he’s even asking. A few months ago, he would have assumed that of course Talon would have obeyed, of course Talon would have protected his place in this new Noxus.

Now, though, he thinks of Talon dripping wet in the firelight, Talon seated by his bed and speaking to him until he falls asleep, Talon standing utterly still with his eyes closed so that Vladimir would feel safe – the man’s proven, at the very least, that he had no intention of hurting Vladimir. Had.

The rules have changed. A new game has begun. Vladimir doesn’t know what Talon plans now, but he knows that Talon doesn’t want to hurt him. It’s in the way that his muscles are tense, in the long pauses before Talon speaks. It’s screaming from every line of Talon’s body and it’s something that Vladimir can use if only he can bring himself to trust in it.

“If I don’t –” Talon starts to say, then corrects himself, “If I do, but it’s not strong enough or doesn’t last long enough, would you be able to escape? Petricite makes it impossible to do magic. If you’re placed between two petricite rocks, would you still be able to pool before they crush you?”

“No.” It’s a flat answer. It’s an answer that Vladimir knows Talon knows. It’s the petricite bars of the cage that are holding Vladimir trapped rather than the lock of steel. Why is Talon asking something so stupid? The assassin is many things but Vladimir has never thought him a fool before.

Talon nods, eyebrows pulling together in a frown. “You’ll be in the cage until they take you out to - tie you to the rock. That’s only a few seconds of freedom.”

Enough for Vladimir to infect people with a hemoplague. Not enough for Vladimir to get far away – he can pool, yes, but he can’t parkour and bolt the way that Talon can. He is meant to fight, not to flee, and all Talon is saying is that Vladimir will have time to avenge himself before he dies.

“Is that all you came here to tell me?” Vladimir asks, watching Talon’s downturned face. Talon’s always been so infuriatingly intent on staring at him with those vivid eyes; to not have those red eyes trained on him is disconcerting.

“No,” Talon says, then takes a deep breath and lets go of the cage. He steps back, pulling a few strands loose from his hair and then bites his own lip until blood wells up. “If you get captured again, tell them that I was an idiot and tried to open the cage to kiss you. You rushed out and overpowered me, then locked me in the cage.”

He glances up and meets Vladimir’s eyes; his smile is a thin, strained thing but it’s real.

“But it’s better if you don’t get caught.”


	3. Ekko/Ezreal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by prodigal-ezreal:
> 
> ❛ some people are so good at disappearing that you start to doubt your memories that they were ever there. ❜ [ drabble if you can ❤️ ]

Ekko

_-comes to Piltover to visit him, all bright eyes and cocky confidence, standing in the line for the gateway. The queue is moving slowly because everyone entering Piltover has to be checked for biochem weapons, Zaun’s specialty, but Ezreal can see him and waves. Ekko smiles back at him – and then he’s gone. There’s a woman where he was, a woman carrying a basket and dressed like a Demacian merchant, but there’s no Ekko no matter how Ezreal strains his eyes to find him, and it-_

is

_-midnight, far too late for good boys from Piltover to be wandering about but Ezreal has always been an explorer first and foremost, not good but greedy for knowledge. Somewhere in these city, Ekko is running wild with the other children of Zaun. Somewhere in this city, Ekko’s parents are asleep, unaware of what their son is doing and how time bows before him. He passes a mural of a sad-eyed boy and recognizes him as the same boy on Ekko’s phone lockscreen. There’s a flash of neon turquoise ahead of him, so bright that it can only be Ekko and Ezreal quickens his steps but is-_

not

_\- seeing things, he is not delusional, he swears that. He keeps thinking that Ekko is there but that doesn’t mean he’s seeing things. Ekko jumps through time, it’s possible he’s catching glimpses of him in the moments before Ekko rewinds. He needs to talk to Ekko about it, he needs to confirm that this is what’s happening. It’s why he’s made a date with Ekko, why he’s waiting at this café in Piltover for Ekko to show up and stay. A light-hearted laugh drifts over to him and Ezreal turns his head sharply towards the source of the sound but sees nothing-_

there.


	4. soulmates (Azir/Talon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where you have the date your soulmate will die on your wrist.

_i.       tick_  
  
When Azir is born, there is a strange string of numbers followed by three letters. The numbers are recognizable but the letters do not refer to their current century or even the one that will follow.   
  
How long lived will the Emperor’s soulmate  _be_  if she dies over a century hence? Will she be divine and the date shows when she ceases her incarnation? Will she be an Ascended and the date is when she returns to human form?  
  
The court astrologers cast their bone dice and the soothsayers spread the animal entrails wide, but they cannot see the face of the Emperor’s soulmate.   
  
Azir grows up wearing a beaten gold band over his wrist. It would be cruel to his wife otherwise to always remind her that she is not his soulmate.

 _ii.       tock_  
  
Talon’s born with an infinity symbol on the inside of his wrist. Maybe it’s what saves him, he speculates as he climbs through the sewers and kills his way up through the slums. Maybe having a soulmate who will live forever means some of his soulmate’s strength is leaking through the bond.   
  
Or maybe it’s just because Talon is ruthless when it comes to his own survival.  Maybe his soulmate will make him immortal too but he has to meet them first. He has to survive childhood in the Noxian murder mills, he has to survive enslavement under General Du Couteau, he has to survive and he has to  _find_ them.  
  
He thinks, at first, that it could be Vladimir until Vladimir explains that hemomancers choose to die - and Swain is only a man, bound to a demon, who will die one day too. There are no other immortals in Noxus that Talon knows of, so he leaves the city of his birth and goes searching.  
  
His arm wraps keep the infinity symbol from being seen. He will not have himself used as a hostage against his soulmate, for surely an immortal would also be rich enough to ransom back their destined lover.  
  
Ascended look like Swain in his morphed form. Talon assumes they too have made deals that will one day be the death of them. He does not consider Azir as a soulmate, only a friend who is patient and kind.  
  
He swings by the palace every time he visits Shurima; gradually, his visits grow closer and closer together.  
  
 _iii.       tick_

Azir sees the infinity mark, golden and bright as if it were freshly inked, when Talon is soaking in one of the baths. His bird heart, always beating too fast, stops as Talon rolls his head to a side lazily and smiles up at Azir.  
  
The assassin, annoying and efficient at the same time, has latched onto him for reasons that Azir has never been able to decipher. Now, looking at the mark, he thinks that he knows.  
  
Does the boy believe Azir is his soulmate? No. Talon has no subtlety in his soul. If he thought Azir was his soulmate, he would have announced it the first time they met.   
  
Renekton? Nasus? Are they why Talon keeps returning to Shurima and insisting on making himself part of Azir’s life?  
  
Something sharp twists in Azir’s stomach and he draws himself up. He is the  _Emperor_  and –  
  
“Do you still take baths? Crows like bathing. I don’t know about falcons.” Talon says and breaks the mood with his sheer obliviousness.  
  
 _iv.       tock_    
  
“…It’s getting close to the date,” Talon says with a nod at Azir’s wrist. The ink is golden still but will turn black once the death takes place; for the rest of his life, Azir will have to wear the reminder that he lost his one true match. “You want me to hang around when the day comes? We can eat some stuff, I can groom your feathers, that kind of thing.”  
  
It’ll be a distraction for Azir and Talon means it kindly, Azir knows, but that’s not what makes him nod.  
  
If Talon is in the palace, if Talon is right next to him, then Talon will be safe. Talon’s not his soulmate, of course, the boy’s not even thirty yet, that’s too young to die but -   
  
There aren’t many people who care about him as a person rather than an Emperor. Azir will permit himself to care, just a little, about this strange assassin who does.

_iv.       boom_

“Healer!” Azir screeches, and it is a screech, a sound so bird-like that he’d be ashamed at any other time. Now there’s no room for shame, there’s nothing but panic as Talon’s blood flows over his claws despite how firmly Azir presses his hands down over the wound. There are sand soldiers running, there are servants scattering and - there’s Talon, looking up at him, vivid crimson eyes clouded and dark with pain.  
  
There’s Talon  _dying_  and everything else fades away.  
  
Azir had thought it hurt to watch his wife and children die. This is worse. This is a sundering of the universe.   
  
Birds can’t even cry. There are no tears in his eyes but his voice is raw with anguish, “Talon, the healers are coming.”  
  
“Not - in time.” Talon’s mouth twists into a shaky little smirk and his fingers find Azir’s claws. He winds his fingers around the claws - what harm can a few more cuts do? - and squeezes as if he doesn’t care if Azir’s claws sever his fingers.   
  
“So it’s me, huh?” He asks almost conversationally, but there’s a desperate plea in his eyes and it strikes Azir for the first time just how lonely  _Talon_  must’ve been. He couldn’t have visited Shurima so often and for so long if there had been anyone who loved him enough to have him stay elsewhere.  
  
“Yes,” Azir confirms quietly, beak clicking shut on the word like a trap. “It’s you.”  
  
 _You are loved, you are important, you are the other half of his soul, you cannot die–_  
  
“…you too.” Talon says, words whisper-quiet and coupled with a smile far, far too soft for the assassin’s face.   
  
He shuts his eyes; the numbers on Azir’s wrists turn black.


	5. kiss meme (Talon/Swain)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set in the Ravenblade verse, where Swain takes in Talon and raises him.

The boy’s eyes are dead and flat. It’s the color that sets them apart from the eyes of the crows, blood instead of black, but they’re otherwise identical.  
  
Swain has seen eyes like that on corpses but corpses stare sightlessly at the sky. Corpses do not watch his every move as if waiting for him to fall.  
  
His crows watch Talon but all they ever see is Talon watching him. Swain watches Talon but all he ever sees is Talon watching him.  
  
“What is it, Talon?” Swain asks finally.   
  
The boy shrugs, unfolds himself gracefully and drops off his perch on the window. He moves like smoke curling into the air, slow and sinuous, and his eyes never leave Swain’s face.  
  
(It’s Ionia that’s done this, Ionia that’s poisoned Swain’s thoughts and made him so paranoid of even those closest to him. The boy he took in as a young teenager is older now, more dangerous, but still loyal to Swain.   
  
Talon has to be trustworthy. Swain has to trust him.)   
  
Talon’s within striking range now and Swain’s demon hand twitches at his side. Power’s gathering within him, ready to be unleashed, and the demon stirs in the back of his consciousness.   
 _  
Prey? Kill?_ it asks and Swain doesn’t say  _‘no’._  
  
He says instead, _‘not yet’_ and waits for Talon to make his move.  
  
When it comes, it’s too fast for Swain to react. He jerks his hand up, claws curled and glowing, but Talon has already pressed his lips to Swain’s and then dropped back down.  
  
Talon doesn’t move away. He stays there, too close to Swain, close enough that he has to tip his head back to look up into Swain’s eyes.  
  
“I didn’t take you in for  _this_ ,” Swain says. quiet but firm, and watches the boy’s pretty mouth curve faintly upwards.  
  
“I know,” he says simply. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if you had.” 


	6. Arranged Marriage (Azir/Talon)

“It is an insult,” his people say, murmuring to each other under the shade of the bazaar stalls, in the quiet times after lunch, in small groups clustered tightly around hookahs.

“It is an insult,” his advisors say, plucking their chins in distress, slamming their staffs against the ground, puffing out their chests under their robes, glowering at the ground.

Azir looks at the young man, so slim when stripped of his bladed cloak, and thinks of knives in the night, the hunger of Noxus which will consume everything and his young, untested army.

“It is a warning,” he says and as Emperor, his word is final.

—

Talon is so painfully young to Azir’s eyes. Azir has ruled an Empire, been betrayed by his best friend, had his wife and children die for his misplaced trust and returned to find Shurima crumbled. What has his new husband known except death and suffering?

Azir teaches him Ancient Shuriman, the tongue that has been corrupted and changed into the modern version, and feeds him honey-soaked dates for each right answer. He skewers them on his talons and holds them to Talon’s mouth so that his teeth may sink into it and pull it free. Talon licks Azir’s talons when he’s done and Azir does not have the heart to tell him that his talons have only as much sensation as Talon’s fingernails.

Talon is trying. He is an ever-present warning from Noxus that the new Shuriman empire is not strong enough to stand against them, he is an ever-present threat of a knife in Azir’s neck, but he is trying to be a good husband. As if he does not know why he was sent to this foreign land of sun and sand, as if all his mangled attempts at Ancient Shuriman will stop him from killing his husband if he is ordered to.

Azir treats him gently but never is foolish enough to forget the boy is a monster in human skin.

—

Sometimes, Talon leaves the palace and slips into the bazaar. The Palace guards assigned to follow him lose him all too soon but Azir does not rage at them. Noxus sent their best to his bed; in a way, it is a compliment that they considered Shurima Reborn to be so threatening a foe.

(At its height, the Shuriman Empire covered more territory than Noxus. They are right to fear him.)

The guards never know where Talon is going but Azir knows it is to get orders from Noxus.

When Talon comes back with paper packets of chilli-dusted cashews and hand feeds them to Azir, Azir uses his beak to take the treats with the utmost delicacy.

—

“Noxus asks for too much,” one of his advisors blusters. Her hair is wrapped over her head in tight braids, studded with blue beads, and her eyes gleam as fiercely as her adornments. “Their latest list of trading demands is impossible.”

“I agree,” Talon says unexpectedly. It is rare for him to actually sit on the matching throne to Azir’s and rarer still for him to do anything other than spin his blades over his fingers. “Noxus only respects strength. The more you give in, the more they’ll demand. You have to stand up to them.”

Gaping advisers stare at him until one of them demands, “Is this a trick? Would you have us anger Noxus to create a pretext for war?”

The slight shift of Talon’s shoulders is barely a shrug. “If Noxus wants to invade, it’ll do so. It doesn’t care about having the high ground. But the more you give them, the less well-equipped you’ll be to fight the war when it comes.”

His words have the ring of an ugly truth; Talon flips off the throne and adjusts his crown. “But nobody wants to listen to a Noxian anyway so I’ll be in the baths.”

His bare feet make no sound as he walks out; scarcely has the door closed behind him than Azir’s advisers burst once more into excited chatter.

Azir ignores them and stares at the inlaid door his husband exited through.

He knows how Noxus works. He does not know how Talon works.

Perhaps that is something he should rectify.

—-

“If it came to war with Noxus, would you simply defect or would you kill me first?” Azir asks. His talons click against the tiles as he approaches the pool that Talon is luxuriating in, his long hair spread over the side and his body tucked neck deep into the water.

“I would give you a list of the most likely people to be leading the army, tell you everything I know about them and ask if you would give me permission to assassinate their most dangerous mages and best tacticians,” Talon said, rolling his head to a side and pillowing it on his wet arm. He was on eye-level with Azir’s talons but there was nothing of a supplicant’s submission in his pose.

“You think I’m here because of Noxus. And it’s true Noxus arranged our marriage. But do you really think the Noxian High Command  _asked_ if I wanted to marry you?” His voice was softer now but his eyes were still sharp. “You don’t hate Noxus. Not really. This is just politics for you.”

Quieter still, the curved ceiling amplifying what would have been a whisper. “I hate Noxus more than you ever will.”

It is not an insult but a warning - so Azir listens.


	7. Arranged Marriage (Jarvan/Talon)

The ceiling is made of glass in the grand hall and the sunlight, sharpened into beams and blazing white, falls on statutes of the purest white marble. They are arrayed in two lines, knights standing guard before the largest statute of them all. The founder of Demacia, carved from gold-veined marble and on a throne of gold, looks down the length of the hall to where Prince Jarvan II stands on the steps and looks at the small, dark figure seated at the statue’s feet.

There is a blindfold over Talon’s eyes, a thin thing of black silk, but he turns his head and looks unerringly at his spouse. In the hall of white and gold, he stands out like a blotch against Demacia’s unsullied record; he is wearing Demacian colors, blue and white, but the blue is so dark that it verges on black, and the white is only seen in the cuffs and collar of his shirt, barely visible under the surcoat and jacket. His scarf (red for Noxus, red for bloodshed) has not been seen since the wedding but his eyes are Noxus-red under the blindfold. Talon carries his homeland with him in his scars and in his eyes; Jarvan cannot look at him without being reminded of that.

“What are you doing?” Jarvan asks, not moving from his place on the steps. Hundreds of meters separate him and his spouse but the acoustics of the hall carry his words to Talon as surely as if he whispered into Talon’s ear. Talon twitches, a little surprised motion; he’s too far away for Jarvan to see if he is smiling but his tone holds no amusement when he answers.

“Exploring the castle – I wanted to look at the statues but it’s too bright here.” A pause and then he adds, “I grew up underground. Under the capital city of Noxus. I wear special darkened goggles when I go to Shurima and the Freljord, but Demacia’s never been so bright. I didn’t think to bring them with me.”

“…Is all the castle too bright for you?” Jarvan asks. A shake of Talon’s head answers that question to Jarvan’s satisfaction.

“I will have similar lenses made for you,” he promises. Arranged though the marriage was, Talon has been less troublesome than Jarvan feared and besides, it behooves him to treat his husband well for the honor of his family alone. “Until then, would you care for me to tell you something of the history of the men and women memorialized here?”

“…Yes.” Talon slips off the pedestal off the statue, dropping to his feet easily and starting to walk back across the hall to Jarvan. “Thanks, princeling.”

“When I am king,” Jarvan questions as he stands on the steps and waits for Talon to come to him, “Will you call me ‘princeling’ still or will you name me ‘kingling’?”

Talon is close enough now for Jarvan to see his smile, a quick flicker of amusement that curves only the very corners of his lush mouth.

“By then, I hope I’ll be calling you ‘husband’.”


	8. Arranged Marriage (Sona/Talon)

“You’re very lucky,” the matron tells her, dabbing the wet brush into the benihana pot and then smoothing it over Sona’s lips. Behind Sona, one of the orphan girls is plaiting Sona’s hair into long, complex loops that will be secured by the clasps her husband-to-be has sent her. “Married to a Noxian, none of the other Noxians will touch you. No matter what happens in this war, you’ll be safe.”

Sona shuts her eyes and wishes she could cover her ears. She knows what the matron isn’t saying in front of the others – Sona is the oldest, Sona will be sacrificed for the good of the orphans, giving away one girl will spare the others – and she knows the matron is sorry to have to do this.

None of this makes it any easier.

She’s only seen the man she’s meant to marry briefly. He’s handsome enough with a slight tint to his skin and slant to his eyes that suggests Ionian heritage, but he’s a stranger to her. Worse than that, he’s part of the conquering forces. She’s heard the stories of what happens to Ionians captured in battle and can’t help but wonder if he’s a product of one of those unions.

Sona knows so very little about him except how he looks and how he sounds. His voice, low and calm, contrasts jarring with those blood red eyes. If she shuts her eyes and listens to his voice, he could be a tolerable husband. But if she looks at his eyes, at the sharp lines of his face, at his gleaming weapons, what she sees is a monster.

“Don’t cry,” the matron says in sudden alarm. “It’ll ruin all your makeup. And what’s there to cry about? He’s a noble. He’ll give you a good life. Why, he’s a General’s adopted son. An orphan like you!”

Sona holds her breath rather than sniffle; a soft wet cloth wipes the tear away from her cheek and then dryness of rice powder presses down over her skin once more.

——-

The wedding passes in a haze. Everyone is in uniform. There’s a girl with hair as bright as her husband’s eyes who hugs Sona and whispers in her ear, unseen by everyone else, “Hurt him and I’ll kill you.”

Sona can’t even talk to tell the girl that she has nothing to worry about. She can’t even laugh at the absurdity of the idea.

There’s nothing but noise and soldiers in uniforms, nothing but her husband-to-be standing in front of her and a red ribbon bound around her wrist as a temporary leash.

Later, she knows, it’ll become a band of some precious metal or embroidered cloth but for now, it’s just ribbon. She could pick it off and flee. She could leave before–

The tent flap opens and her new husband enters. She spins around, skirts swirling around her ankles, and brings her hands up to her chest where her heart is beating far too fast.

She knows what comes next. The matron has explained it to her. That does not mean she is anywhere near ready.

The man regards her in silence for a few seconds, then his hands move. The gestures are a little clumsy but his fingers flow more smoothly than his hands – it’s the weight of his blade on the right arm, Sona realizes, it makes his arms unbalanced and he has to tilt his hand oddly so she can read what he’s saying.

Knowing he can understand doesn’t take all her concerns away but it does calm her at least a little.

{I saw you by the river,} he tells her, leaning against the table. {You didn’t see me. You were sitting and dangling your feet in the water. Every time a fish swam up to you, your body would move like you were laughing.}

It should be cute, should be flattering, but what Sona thinks is that’s it scary he can spy so easily on anyone he wants. She makes herself smile for him anyway, for this stranger in armor who saw her and changed her life so easily.

{I was going to try to introduce myself to you but then a child ran up to you. I thought they’d be scared so I followed you back to the orphanage instead.} A second of hesitation, then he says out loud, fingers still flowing through the signs, “Noxus isn’t made up of monsters. I know the stories about how we kill young boys so they can’t take up arms against us and how we rape even young girls but – Noxian women are soldiers too. If we were going to kill children to prevent future soldiers, we’d kill them all.”

This is not as reassuring as he clearly means it to be. Sona’s smile freezes on her face at the thought of the others dying and the man curses, shoving both hands through his hair in agitation.

“No, I mean – we won’t touch the orphanage. I swear it. Noxus abides by its promises. I don’t –” It’s all words now, not signs, but Sona’s not deaf. She can hear the frustration in his voice as easily as she can read the vexation in his eyes.

She sits in her wedding dress and watches (she sits in her wedding gown and decides).

—

When she is introduced to the giant half-snake woman who is Talon’s sister, Sona curtseys but the woman laughs. There’s poison in Cassiopeia’s smile but love in her eyes when she looks at her brother.

For his sake, Sona realizes, Cassiopeia will treat her well.

Cassiopeia hugs her and whispers into her ear, “Break his heart and I will kill you far more slowly than Katarina would.”

This time, Sona isn’t perturbed by the threat. She thinks instead how lucky Talon is to have adopted sisters who care so for him; she thinks instead how nice it’ll be when they come to love her too.

—-

For their first wedding anniversary, Talon tells her that a noble lady needs servants of her own so he’s found some who need training but who will be utterly devoted to her.

When he opens the door, it’s two of the others from the orphanage who walk in. They’re well-dressed, scrubbed clean and look better fed than they were in the orphanage.

“They said they were your friends,” Talon says, watching her face. “Did they lie?”

Sona’s spoken often enough of her loneliness that he will have no hesitation in throwing them out if they aren’t amongst the few children who were kind to her.

Sona shakes her head and opens her arms. Her vision blurs briefly but it takes her too long to realize it’s because she’s crying. She’s had very little cause to cry over the last year.

—

Sona hardly dares to breathe until the child cries. One, two, three – and then a scream pierces the air and she slumps into the bed. It’s safe, the child is safe, the child will be able to speak and laugh and scream for help when he needs it.

The doctor gives the baby, cleaned of blood and with a severed umbilical cord back to her. She coos over the boy, cuddling the tiny wrinkled bundle to her chest, and then points towards the door. She wants her husband – now!

“Your husband won’t want to see you like this,” One of the nurses starts to wash her face with a damp cloth, smoothing her hair back. Her dress is damp with sweat, there’s fluid all over the bed and already servants are streaming in to open the windows and light candles to burn away the smell of pain and fear.

Sona pushes her hand away and gestures imperiously at the door again. She grabs the pad of paper next to her bed, pressing it against her knee so she won’t have to balance it and the baby too, then writes out, “Talon will NOT be happy if you keep him waiting!”

She underlines the word ‘not’ three times for good measure and then passes it over. While Talon insisted the servants all learn Valoran Standard Sign language, the midwife and nurses aren’t part of the household. Sona’s been forced to communicate with them through writing, an annoyance she has grown unused to. Even when shopping for the house, she’s had no problem with the merchants because she always has one of her servants with her, ready to translate from sign to speech. Now, at this point in time, Sona is exhausted but sure she has enough energy still left to harangue the woman if she keeps Sona’s husband away from her and the baby.

Fortunately, once the nurse has read the words, her face goes pale and she leaves the room swiftly.

Talon bursts into the room, weapons left behind and his eyes wide. He smiles the moment he sees Sona and when he sees the baby, his smile only grows wider.

“You did it,” he says and his voice holds all the reverence and love that their years of marriage have spun between them. He’s at her bedside swiftly, kissing her sweatsoaked forehead and touching the baby’s hand with a finger that dwarfs the little fist.

“She has dark hair like me,” he says, the corners of his mouth twitching a little. “Poor unlucky baby. I thought she might take after your beautiful blue hair.”

Sona smiles and taps the corners of his eyes, then hers, and points to the baby. She can’t sign with only one hand free but she makes her meaning clear.

“She has your eyes? Good. A little bit of both of us then. What a perfect little girl.” His smile is so wide, so real, that Sona blinks back tears. She points at the baby, then at his arms, but at that Talon balks.

“Me? Hold her? She’s so little still. Shouldn’t she stay with you?” He asks as he looks at the baby with so much trepidation that it makes Sona shake with silent laughter. Her brave husband, scared of a baby small enough to fit in a watermelon.

When he finally takes the baby in his arms and smiles down at her, it reminds Sona of the fairytale books she used to read so long ago. Their relationship didn’t start like a fairy tale – but if it can end like one, if it can end in happiness, Sona will be content enough.


	9. Arranged Marriage (Karthus/Talon)

The barge drifts slowly down the pellucid green waters to the sound of chanting. The banks are lined by Karthus’ cultists, clad in the same white linen shrouds that corpses are buried in. Their bones poke out against their skin and in honor of the occasion, they have painted their faces with ash and chalk, drawing bones over the sharp lines of their faces to give them the look of skeletons.

They are the honor guard who will sing Karthus’ bride to his doom. They are the most trusted of his cultists, the closest to receiving the ultimate honor – except for the teenage boy on the barge, who wears nothing at all. He must leave this life as he entered it, naked of everything but his mother’s blood.

The convention is to kill the mother and bathe the bride in blood but this boy is an orphan from the slums of Noxus. They have clothed him in blood all the same, seeking out the noble family that bore the closest resemblance to his features and slaughtering them so that Karthus’ bride would not come to him unclothed.

There have been many brides over the years. This is one of the more perfect. A bride must be lean from starvation but know death. This boy is half-starved but he has killed. Death has come at his command and he does not fear it. Younger brides have longer lives but too young and they will not understand what death is. This boy is perched on the perfect line, old enough to understand death but young enough to have scores of years before him still.

A lot of the brides cry on the barge, tear tracks leaving shimmering lines in their bloody masks, but this boy tilts his chin up and waits. His gaze tracks everything; the singers on the riverbanks, Karthus waiting by the altar and the spirits that teem just under the water’s surface. A single misstep and he will be theirs.

Brides have chosen that fate before when they have seen their groom but this boy does not flinch when Karthus holds out his hand to help the boy from the barge.

His hand is small within Karthus’ but he allows himself to be walked onto the altar and does not protest when Karthus lifts him up to place him on it.

“Part your legs, my bride,” Karthus instructs. “To bring you back to me, we must be bonded.”

Defiance snaps brightly in the boy’s eyes, sharp as a blade, but he does not make a sound as Karthus takes him ceremoniously before all the cultists. His hands grip the side of the altar so tightly that Karthus knows if the boy had a weapon, it would be buried in Karthus’ chest.

To Karthus’ disappointment, he does not cry. The tears of a virgin spilled during violation have a certain savor to them that nothing else matches.

When Karthus starts to sing, the boy’s eyes glaze over. The Requiem sends the cultists to their knees and takes the bright light out of the boy’s eyes. Only when the boy is dead does Karthus place the wedding ring on his finger as he continues singing.

If the boy is worthy, he will return.

Only one who has returned from the dead is worthy of being his bride.


	10. hurt comfort (Talon/Vlad)

The bolts had buried themselves deep int Vlad’s back - for anyone else, wrenching them out have meant death. For a hemomancer, it meant pain but it was safer to get the silver bolts out of Vlad than to let their poison keep spreading through his blood. Talon stared down at the blackened flesh surrounding the rugged holes and felt a snarl rising through his chest and up his throat.  
  
“I’ll kill her for this,” he swore as he tilted the jug to pour more distilled water over the large, raised blisters that bled clear fluid over Vlad’s back.Vlad groaned, fingers clutching at the sheets, and Talon smoothed one hand over Vlad’s sweat-slicked hair.

“Sorry,” Talon said softly, “Just bear it for a little longer.”  
  
“Stop being so gentle,” Vlad snapped in reply. “It’s all in vein. Cut out the poisoned flesh, bleed me clean and I’ll heal once it’s all out.”

“…Fine.” Talon set the jug down, then switched out the towels packed around Vlad’s sides. His hand didn’t shake as he picked up the sharpest of his blades, but he did allow himself to lean forward and peck a kiss to the back of Vlad’s neck.   
  
“I’ll make it quick,” he promised and began.


	11. Biology (Academy Vlad AU)

It’s in biology class that Vladimir opens like a vein, bleeding eagerness all over the desks.

In math class, in English class, in history class, Vladimir’s nothing special. Just another rich brat attending Valoran Academy, just another student who’ll never need anything he studies because his family has far too much money.

In biology class, it’s different. Vladimir comes alive when he carves into the frogs, scalpel peeling away their skin in slices as thin as tissue. There’s a brightness to his eyes that’s otherwise lacking, as if he’s a china doll who only comes to life when there’s blood on his hands.

Everyone’s told to wear gloves when they do dissections. Vladimir never does. He pins the frog legs down with his bare fingertips, nails digging into the slimy skin, and draws the scalpel down in a steady line.

Around him, people ‘eww’ and fight to not be the one to do the dissection. 

Vladimir exists in his own oasis of calm where it’s only him and the cool blood spilling over his slim fingertips. only him and the flesh that gives way under his scalpel’s steady pressure.

“You should be a surgeon,” one of his classmates says, peering over with sick fascination.

“Yes,” Vladimir agrees, a faint smile flickering over his lips. “Do you want to play doctor with me?”

His classmate laughs, mistaking the threat for a come-on, and Vladimir’s smile widens.

She’ll learn soon enough. They all will.


	12. Greek Mythology AU (Talon)

1] Of all the fatherless children of dark Nyx, Talon is the least known and the most darkly worshipped. His merciless brother Thanatos, the god of death, will have his fill of each living thing and mortals make rites to keep away his fearsome sisters, the destructive Keres. Talon, however, escapes such popular notice.

2] Twin to Moros, unyielding doom, Talon is worshipped by killers alone. He is the death-bringer god, the one who does not wait for mortals to die but comes and strikes them down upon the hour that Moros has declared.

3] Assassins bury bloodied blades and half-emptied vials of poison. The only sacrifices Talon will accept are those that have taken lives. If mortals do not sacrifice to him, their next kills may not succeed.

4] There are no priests or temples. Talon is everywhere. Bury blood, bury bones, and that will be sufficient honor - but it must be from kills that are personally performed. There are no priests to slit the throats of bulls, no priestesses to keep worshipper’s hands clean and their hearts bloody. Talon demands a personal level of involvement.

5] At the last, the assassins whisper, if you have been true to him, then Talon will take you to Hades himself. He will end your life swiftly, painlessly, and he will take you past the gods of judgment to the Lord of the Underworld. He will speak on your behalf of the souls you have sent to Hades and the skill you have shown. He has few worshippers but because of that, he will intervene in ways that the Olympian Twelve will not. 

(Pray in whispers. Pray in silence. He will always hear you if you pray with blood on your hands.)


	13. Vampire AU (Talon/Vlad + Du Couteaus)

**1.]**   The Underground is full of stories of monsters, of flesh-eating moss that will cover you in a single night’s sleep and grow red off your blood, of rats the size of dogs that will steal unattended babies, of creatures that are more shadow than man and always, always hungry.  
  
Just because they’re stories doesn’t mean they’re not true.  
  
 **2.]**  A flash of white, a gleam of red and Talon doesn’t wait to see what it is. He’s grown up in the Underground; he knows better than to question his instincts   
  
He  _runs_.  
  
He doesn’t run fast enough.  
  
 **3.]** “Hello, little–” The creature’s cut-off midsentence by the knife that sinks into his chest, Talon lunging off the bed from a seemingly sound sleep straight into an attempt at murder.  
  
Blood blossoms around the blade and the white of the creature’s eyes turn as red as its irises. It shows no sign of pain, only smiles wide and white.  
  
“Quick little thing, aren’t you?” It remarks and its lips peel back from a mouthful of sharp, triangular teeth. Talon’s stomach turns and he yanks the knife out, back flips off the bed and bolts for the nearest widow.  
  
The creature’s there between him and the window immediately.  
  
“Now, now. You must stop running and  _listen_.” The words have the air of a command but Talon’s never been the obedient type. He lashes out with his knife at the creature’s eyes instead. If it can’t see him, perhaps it won’t be able to chase him down.  
  
His wrist is caught in an unyielding grasp. The creature squeezes and Talon howls as his wrist breaks, knife clattering to the floor. Panting, pupils blown wide with pain, he reassesses his options.   
  
Superhuman strength and speed, doesn’t die from a knife from a heart, doesn’t feel pain - the pieces are fitting together into an ugly puzzle indeed. Defiance won’t work for the moment. Deceit will have to save him.  
  
“Now will you listen?” The creature asks and Talon nods, feigns defeat.  
  
This is how he joins the Du Couteau clan as a donor.  
  
 **4.]** “I want out,” he tells Vladimir, hissing the words into the vampire’s ear. Scabbing bite marks litter Talon’s throat, bared by the v-necked tops that Marcus likes Talon to wear. Vladimir’s gaze has drifted to them often enough during the evening that Talon’s certain he’s open to negotiation.  
  
“And why should I care?” Vladimir asks, hands sliding down Talon’s body. Talon tilts his hips up in response but his eyes are clear and focused.  
  
“Because Marcus stands in the way of the Black Rose clan’s rise to power. Help me remove him and it’ll remove an obstacle from your path.” Talon licks his lips, keeping his eyes on Vladimir’s.   
  
“You should negotiate with Swain,” Vladimir says but doesn’t take his hands off Talon. “He’s the Master of the clan.”  
  
“I know,” Talon says, flashing Vladimir a smirk almost worthy of a vampire. “But he’s not the one who’s been watching me out all evening.”  
 **  
5.]** Marcus dies and Katarina takes over as head of the Clan. Talon feigns shock just as well as he once feigned defeat.  
  
She won’t let him go, no more than her father would. Talon’s blood is too delicious, too powerful, thanks to its faint touch of hemomancy.  
  
He considers killing her but then Cassopeia will take over. And if he kills Cassiopeia, someone else will rise to be the Master of the Clan. There’s only one way out that he can see now.  
  
“Turn me,” he says after he turns up on Vladimir’s doorstep.   
  
Vladimir smiles, white and wide and  _wild._ “I thought you’d never ask.”  
  
There is pain. And then there is freedom.


	14. Demacian AU (Talon/Sona)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talon grows up in Demacia

1] The Demacian orphanage isn’t a bad place. There are so many war orphans that Demacia has perfected the path from orphan to training to cadet to soldier. The children are well-fed and indoctrinated from the day of admission.

Some of them are even adopted.

2] The boy with Noxian-red eyes and a smile like a knife’s bloody edge doesn’t get shown to potential parents. He remains as his friends are chosen and he knows it’s for the same reason his mother left him on the orphanage’s doorstep when he was born. He is half-Noxian, he has traitor’s blood, he has savage blood and it shows in his eyes. What good, loyal Demacian would want a child like that?

Bernard, they call him, but he reads of dragons and calls himself Talon.

3] There’s a girl who comes to the orphanage monthly. She’s Ionian just as clearly as Talon is Noxian, and she never says a word as she distributes food and toys to the children. At first, Talon thinks she’s just shy ad then he overhears the matron talking about how good it was of Lady Buvelle to adopt a girl that’s mute.

Next time she comes, he stands in front of her and carefully shapes the signs for <>.. The boy that taught him is in the military now (probably dead, Talon assumes) but Talon still remembers him and what he taught Talon.

<> She signs back, her hands going through a complicated series of motions so quickly that Talon can’t decipher them. It doesn’t matter. Her smile’s so bright that it’s hard for him to focus on her hands.

<> he signs in return. <>

Her lips part and her body shakes with silent laughter. She tucks a strand of hair behind her hair and takes a deep breath before going through the signs again, her fingers quivering with checked eagerness.

Her fingers move beautifully through the air, graceful and sure. Short, carefully trimmed nails cap fingers that are surprisingly calloused for a noble girl. What had she been before Lady Buvelle took her in?

<> she signs, then finger spells her name, <> Her right hand’s fingers sweep over the palm of her left hand and then drum out a quick pattern on her palm.

Talon copies the smile and receives a smile of approval that makes him feel as if his blood has turned to honey, all warm and sticky-slow in his veins, clogging his heart so it doesn’t beat quite right for a second.

<> he finger spells it, then hooks a finger like a raptor’s claw and slashes it twice through the air quickly.

When she replicates the sign he’d created for himself, it looks more like a harpist plucking strings. Even his name becomes a melody when caressed by her fingers.

 

4.] As the years take Talon closer to conscription, he starts to see Sona in a different light. She’s not just a friend. She’s a way out of the death sentence of an army career. She’s a potential savior.

<> He asks her one day, fingers sticky and shining from the honey oozing out of the cakes they’d been eating. A drop slides down his wrist and he licks it up carelessly; sweets are too precious a treat to waste.

< _> she signs back with a quick glance at her priceless magical etwahl that Talon doesn’t understand. Surely possessing such an instrument would mean she needs guards more than ever?_

_< > Talon licked his fingers clean before wiping them with a wet napkin and lacing his fingers with hers. He squeezed lightly, then let go to sign, <>_

_Her hands jerk in sharp surprise and her body shivers with soundless amusement. He knows he should be offended but Sona laughing at him is better than the complicated darkness that crosses her eyes whenever her mother is mentioned._

_< > She asks, fingers quivering a little still with the aftermath of her laughter._

_< > Sona wouldn’t even have a grave to visit if he died in foreign lands for the sake of people who had never loved him._

_To hold her hands too tightly would be to silence her. He turns her hands over instead so her fingertips rest on his palm and then leans down to kiss the backs of her fingers gently. His lips linger against her bare skin and when Talon lifts his head and looks at her, her cheeks are flushed delicately pink._

_“Please,” he says, his voice as soft as he can make it. Talon rarely speaks around Sona, preferring to make it seem as if they were signing a secret language than remind her that it was because she couldn’t speak._

_But no matter how he makes his fingers tremble, no matter how sharp and agitated the motions, he doesn’t think they’ll convey as much as his voice does. He never asked her to adopt him, never asked for gifts or demanded she visit more often. This is the only thing he’s ever asked her for. Surely that counts for something?_

_“Please,” he says again, “Let me be yours.”_

_5] The city is filled with pink and red for Heartseeker’s Day and Sona’s house is filled with flowers from her admirers. Talon scowls at a particularly obnoxious arrangement of roses and resists the urge to push it over. He is not actually a cat, no matter how much Sona teases him about moving as quietly as a cat._

_Despondent is music is pouring from the sun room so he lets his feet take him there, pausing in the doorway to take in the sight of Sona draped over a chaise-lounge and strumming listlessly at the etwahl._

_< > he signs when she looks up at him. <>_

_Rather than reply with words (rather than stop playing), Sona shakes her head. Her fingers continue to caress the etwahl with all the tenderness she should’ve shown a lover, her soft pink mouth crumpled into a frown._

_< > Talon coaxes, crossing the room to sit besides her. <>_

_< _> Sona flings her hands away from the etwahl with a discordant note, hands stabbing through the air like delicate porcelain knives. <>__

__< > Talon signs in response, forcing his hands not to shake.<_ _

__> Sona turns away from him but her hands betray her, staying in the air and trembling like unspilled tears._ _

__“Yeah. I do.” The sound of Talon’s voice, smooth and low, makes Sona look back at him. His fingers catch hers again, cradling them gently, but he never takes his eyes off hers._ _

__“And I’m saying I could give it to you. If you wanted it. If you wanted me.”_ _

__The silence between them stretches long enough that Talon nearly takes his hands back. Just as his fingers twitch in preparation to pull away, she pulls their hands up and kisses his fingertips as lightly._ _

__The next kiss lands on his mouth and sign language is abandoned in favor of one as old as love itself._ _


	15. Ionian AU Talon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Talon grew up in Ionia?

1\. There are a lot of ways to describe the Noxian Invasion of Ionia. “Civilized” is not one of them. The Ionians die, soldiers and civilians alike, and those that survive wish they’d died too. 

Talon is born to a mother who doesn’t know his father’s name or even which of the soldiers his father had been - at least, not until her baby opens his eyes and she sees the bright, bloody red of his irises.

All life is sacred, she tells herself, and doesn’t leave him in the woods to starve.

2\. His mother doesn’t love him but he’s not the only half-Noxian child in the village. They all group together against the older Ionian kids who can’t quite separate these children from the pain their fathers brought.

3\. When the Master of Shadows comes recruiting, the half-Noxians and war orphans join. What else can they do? The village can hardly support so many mouths with so few adults and so many children. And for the children with Noxian parents, this might be their only chance to prove their loyalty lies with Ionia. 

Talon’s the best hunter in the village, good enough to support both him and his mother. He doesn’t need to leave but the night before the recruiting party moves on, he comes home to his belongings tied up in a square of cloth on the front doorstep.

He takes the parcel and leaves the rabbits in its place. She didn’t kill him. He owes her that much.

4\. Talon is a superlative scout. He can cover any terrain quickly and escapes from situations that would kill other men. He excels in going ahead o the main group and searching for threats. Killing people doesn’t feel any different from killing rabbis, Talon discovers, except he can’t eat the people afterwards.

Whenever he kills a Noxian, he takes the time to check their eyes once they’re dead. None of them have the red he’s looking or.

5\. The Master of Shadows and Order of Shadows create the Blade’s Shadow between them. His blades fly and he follows in their wake, swift and silent.

The Noxian troops learn to fear him.

His mother pretends he never existed.


	16. flashback (Kat + Talon)

The knives spin over her fingers and Talon watches the ripple of her scars instead of the motion of the blades.  
  
“He’ll come back,” she says and her voice holds the surety of a priest speaking of a god. “Father’s doing something important for Noxus. Something secret. That’s why he left without warning us.”  
  
Talon’s role is not to speak but obey. The General taught him that.   
  
“The mages are growing too strong,” she says and her voice is that of a general rallying his troops before a war. “They influence Noxus too much. Especially with Swain in power. Father didn’t tell us what he’s doing so we couldn’t have them take it from us.”  
  
Talon was tortured in Demacia but did not break. The General was not proud of him for it, not when he should have never been captured in the first place.  
  
“He’ll want us to keep things under control while he’s gone,” she says and her voice is that of her father’s. “I’ll command House Du Couteau. Cassiopeia’s too unstable still. Your task is espionage for now. Assassinations must wait until we know who to kill.”  
  
Talon swore only to serve under the General. The General is gone (but Kataria remains).  
  
 _Le roi est mort, vive le roi._


	17. my kid can stab your honor roll student (Fiora + Talon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> modern au

Talon quickened his footsteps when he saw the woman staring speculatively at his car. True, she hardly looked like a potential car thief in her expensive, form-fitting trousers and shirt, sleek hair cut and varnished in a way that screamed ‘ _money_ ’, but Talon had grown up not trusting appearances. Or trusting anything, for that matter.  
  
In one hand, she held a steaming paper cup. Coffee, from the smell of it. With the other, she was taking a photo using her phone.  
  
“What are you doing with my car?” He demanded before reaching her, counting on the volume and roughness of his voice to break her attention. She turned as predicted, an eyebrow arching slightly. The thin, precise line of it was mirrored in the slash of her dark lips as she smiled.  
  
“Admiring your bumper sticker. I did not realize that was a crime.” 

The strong French accent to her tone helped Talon place her immediately. He relaxed marginally, the set of his shoulders no longer as tense.  
  
“You’re the mother of the new French girl.” It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded anyway.  
  
“Yes. I saw you at the last meet.” She paused, taking another sip from her coffee. When she spoke, her words made ghosts in the air, steam figures that lingered for bare seconds. “Your son is  _very_  good.”  
  
“…Thanks.” Complimenting children was a common tactic to disarm their parents, Talon knew, but he was susceptible to it all the same. He took a few steps forward, resting a casually possessive arm over the back of the car. “He said your daughter’s good too.”  
  
“Of course she is. She takes after me.” A smirk twitched at the corners of the woman’s lips, drawing attention to the perfectly painted lines. Everything about her was as sleek and polished as a fencing foil; Talon rarely met women so  _angular._ She was composed of straight lines and sharp edges, from the line of her cheekbones to the jut of her chin. It was like the death goddesses in the paintings of old, both terrible and beautiful.  
  
“You fenced?” He asked, studying her with a newly critical eye. Beauty had always drawn Talon less than  _power_.  
  
“Yes. I was an Olympian and a Grand Prix champion.  _Naturellement_ , Gabrielle took up fencing as well. ” She gave a little toss of her head, bobbed hair swaying about her face to skim her jawline and smirked as Talon as if she expected him to be impressed.  
  
He was, but he wouldn’t show it. Damnit. Why didn’t anyone at this school have  _normal_  parents? Being unable to say that he was an assassin left him at a distinct disadvantage when everyone started bragging.  
  
Maybe he should talk to his son about moving schools.


	18. how it ends (Vlad/Talon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when an asexual assassin falls for an aromantic serial killer? This.

His fingers linger against Vlad’s cheek as he drives the blade deeper; he caress is more intimate than any he offered while Vlad still lived.  
  
Talon’s fingers are rough, scarred lines interrupting the whorls of his fingerprints. Where the skin gives way to the wraps around his palm, the texture hardly changes.   
  
 _Fitting,_  Vlad thinks distantly but does not know why. He knows the hemomancers in his blood are raging for revenge, he knows the hemomancy he carries is already desperately seeking a new host and more than that, he knows he has never seen Talon’s eyes so bright.  
  
Is the assassin going to cry? Vlad’s never seen him cry. He doesn’t think it’ll be a sight worth dying for but he might be wrong.  
  
He was wrong about Talon. He was wrong about what  _love_  meant to the assassin.  
  
He’d thought love was a leash he could use to control Talon. He should have known better.  
  
In an assassin’s hands, everything was a weapon


	19. First Meetings (Talon/Vlad)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of gossip about Du Couteau's newest acquisition and Vladimir is eager to get to the truth of them.

“Absolutely scandalous,” a woman breathed in the delighted tone of a raccoon who had found a particularly pungent piece of garbage. With the garish black eyeliner she had so liberally applied around her eyes, she looked a little like a raccoon in truth. “Can you  _believe_  it?”  
  
“No, indeed,” Vladimir murmured though he had little idea of what she was talking about. It had something to do with General Couteau, no doubt, as he had just entered along with his daughters but what? The city had changed a great deal during his self-imposed exile and Vladimir was still catching up on the new standings.  
  
“None of us could,” her husband contributed with a disdainful sniff. His words for the evening spent, he buried his nose back in his glass of port.  
  
“And with two daughters!” Ignoring her husband’s contribution, she prattled on, “Can you imagine? Two daughters and he brings a - a –  _boy from the streets_ into his house.”  
  
She shook her head dolefully, tsking at the General’s apparent lack of foresight.  
  
“Simply ruining their reputations! Why, I shouldn’t be surprised if one or both of those girls end up needing hasty marriages.”  
  
Eyeing Cassiopeia, venom-tongued and self-possessed, and Katarina, sharp and clean as the blades she loved, Vladimir couldn’t imagine either of them being fool enough to throw themselves away on some street rat. The boy stepped into the light then as the General moved away, no longer overshadowed, and Vladimir rethought that assumption. For some boy off the streets, he was handsome - sharp cheekbones, full lips and a brooding, simmering darkness in those vivid red eyes that called to (and was answered) by a similar darkness in Vlad’s own soul.  
  
 _Well._  
  
Vladimir’s reputation certainly wouldn’t be sullied by a dalliance with the General’s latest protégé. It’d be an entertaining diversion at the very least.  
  
“Do excuse me,” he murmured, eyes fixed on his prey. “I believe it is time I introduce myself to him.”  
  
He glided across the floor, the crowd parting for him automatically, and stopped in front of the young man who was currently scowling at a bottle of wine as if it had personally offended him. The General was deep in conversation with one of Darkwill’s lackeys and his daughters had already been swept onto the dance floor.   
  
Good. This would be a nice, intimate conversation that Vladimir could use to lead him into further intimacies.  
  
“Good evening,” he greeted the boy with one of his most charming smiles, “I am Lord Vlad–”  
  
“I don’t care,” the boy interrupted rudely. Before Vladimir could even react, the boy turned and stalked off.  
  
“…” Rude little thing. Vladimir would have to teach him some manners.


	20. male-presenting nipples (Tryndamere/Ashe)

“Your people need to stop knitting me sweaters,” Tryndamere told Ashe as he eyed the latest offering. The thick grey wool bore the symbol of the Avarosa on the front and would have been unobjectionable if it weren’t for the bright pink cuffs. Where did they even get dye in that shade of pink?  
  
“They’re concerned for you,” Ashe answered, not looking up for the treaty she was reading. “Avarosans do not run about in the cold without covering their chests.”  
  
Marking her place by leaving her finger against the parchment, she looked up to give her husband a wry smile, “There is a betting pool on when, exactly, your nipples will fall off from frostbite.”  
  
“Hmph.” Tryndamere whacked himself on his very solid, muscular chest. “My nipples are just fine. As is the rest of me.”  
  
“Yes, dear,” Ashe agreed. Something about her smile made Tryndamere think he had missed something but he forgot all about it when Ashe suggested, “Should I tell them to knit you tiny nipple covers, held on by a string?”  
  
As her husband spluttered indignantly at the thought, Ashe returned to reading. She made a mental note to get something like that made for him if only so she could see his face when she presented it to him.  
  
No man as hotblooded as Tryndamere ever had to fear frostbite.


	21. the line of succession (Katarina/Talon)

“It’s his fault I can’t have an heir,” Katarina told Talon, staring out the window at the vast expanses of the Du Couteau estates. “I’ve had all his affairs and past lovers investigated. Not  _one_  of them ever became pregnant - at least, not by him.”  
  
“…Do you want me to kill his mistresses?” Talon offered after an awkward pause as he tried to figure out why Katarina was telling him that. “Or kill him so you can remarry?”  
  
“No. The marriage is fine but  _I need an heir_.” She turned from the window, red hair whipping behind her like a crackling tendril of fire, and fixed her eyes on Talon. “I can’t–”  
  
For once, he saw her falter. For once, her gaze dropped before his, Katarina’s voice quieter as she continued.  
  
“I can’t trust anyone else with this. And I need an heir, Talon. Do you understand?”  
  
She looked up at him again, jaw set and eyes resolute, and Talon found himself slowly nodding. Yes. He understood. She couldn’t trust anyone else to keep such a secret. She couldn’t trust anyone else in bed with her. She couldn’t let the rumors that she was barren continue. She couldn’t die without an heir.  
  
He understood. That didn’t mean he agreed.  
  
“Will you help me?” She asked, vulnerable in a way that Katarina wasn’t supposed to be, and Talon found himself nodding again.  
  
Anything to take that despair from her eyes.


	22. saving my sister (Cassiopeia/Katarina)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw incest

“I won’t get married,” Katarina insists, glaring at her sister as if Cassiopeia is about to drag her up the aisle. For emphasis, she brandishes the hairbrush as if it is one of her beloved daggers. “I  _won’t_.”  
  
“Then I will,” Cassiopeia answers. She catches her sister’s wrist and kisses Katarina’s calloused, scarred knuckles instead of pushing her sister’s hand down; she has always better understood how to make a man disarm himself.  
  
There’s fury in Katarina’s eyes and Cassiopeia can hear the words her sister won’t speak ( _you promised, us two forever, you said you would always be there for me)_ , held back as much by pride as the knowledge of how useless they would be.  
  
“One way or another, dear sister, this will end,” Cassiopeia tells her impulsive, headstrong,  _foolish_  sister.  
  
Katarina kisses her desperately, as if she can force the words back into Cassiopeia’s mouth, and Cassiopeia is not surprised.


	23. Artificial Perfection (Viktor/Jhin)

One. Two. Three. Four.   
  
It took Viktor four seconds to swallow all the way down to the base; he  _can_  do it faster but instead, he kept count in his head and didn’t break the rhythm that he knew Jhin liked. Each movement was precise, not slow but as  _efficient_ as Jhin loading bullets into his gun.  
  
“You need a fourth hand,” Jhin said, his slow breaths matched with Viktor. In response, Viktor snorted and let the third hand stroke through Jhin’s hair, tugging him forwards to make him look more closely at Viktor’s work. Viktor pulled off and licked his lips, then gave four carefully calculated licks before answering.  
  
“I function well enough with three. A fourth is a possibility for the future, once I calculate how to make my brain accept it.” The problem wasn’t building or even attaching a fourth arm. It was training his mind to get used to having an extra limb to manipulate.   
  
He didn’t need to look up to know Jhin was smiling. That sixth animal sense that he hadn’t figured out quite yet how to program into his creations told Viktor that his lover’s lips were curled in that faint, borderline smirk, that passed for a smile. Jhin’s fingers slid into his hair, caressing with that lightness that alerted Viktor that Jhin was thinking of pulling, and Viktor drew away.  
  
“Don’t,” he warned, his hands latching around Jhin’s slim wrists. It was a marvel of engineering that Jhin could wield such a large weapon with such slender forearms. Viktor’s long fingers enclosed Jhin’s wrists like cuffs, holding them down at Jhin’s sides.  
  
In the mirror, Viktor’s reflection matched his actions.  
  
One. Two. Three. Four.  
  
It wasn’t vanity that compelled Jhin to insist on a mirror when they coupled; it was his compulsion and Jhin could refuse it no more than the waves could refuse the pull of the moon.  
  
One day, Viktor would carve into his lover’s brain and translate his brain into a program. He would turn Jhin’s mannerisms into code, make his quirks of speech into saved declaratory statements. This obsession of Jhin’s with the numeral four was something that Viktor would have to decide whether to keep or remove.   
  
He would be a god and could remake Jhin in the image he favored; now, the fragments of poetry, of song, that issued from Jhin’s lips were the prayers that Viktor  _deserved_.  
  
He could only translate life so far. He had yet to truly create it.  
  
One day he would and so he bent his head to his task.  
  
One. Two. Three. Four.   
  
He squeezed Jhin’s wrists lightly in pulses of four, matching it to the rhythm he set. The way that Jhin writhed under him, languages changing as the poetry of his motions devolved into freeverse, was as beautiful as an error-free compilation of code. The head of Jhin’s cock jabbed at the back of his throat and Viktor forced his throat to relax.  
  
He focused on Jhin’s mechanical parts rather than his pale, scarred skin, staring at the limbs that looked so much like his own augmentations. The moonlight gleamed off the metal as it stole the color from Jhin’s flesh and it was easy to ignore the human parts of Jhin - the flawed parts of Jhin.  
  
This wasn’t sex, he told himself. It was the welding together of two machines, the connection of tower and display.   
  
The thought was soothing. They were just two machines, connecting as machines did.  
  
(The next time Viktor repairs Jhin, he uses a screw he’s removed from one of his own augmented limbs. It’s a small, small thing but it means his lover carries him everywhere.  
  
It means they are part of each other in a way that flesh bodies, short of organ transplants, can never be.  
  
He puts the screw from Jhin into his own leg plate and smiles as he twists it into place. It only takes four twists to fit perfectly.)


	24. reflection (Jhin/Zed)

“True agony,” Jhin told Zed as he packed rose petals against the open wounds, “Is a thing of the  _soul_.”  
  
Red and black rose from Zed, tendrils of crimson smoke that caressed the black shadows which reached for Jhin, and the beauty of them made Jhin’s eyes half-lidded behind his mask. What a rotten, corrupted,  _lovely_  thing Zed was.   
  
In the lines of Zed’s unmasked face, Jhin saw himself as no other had ever reflected him. They were both Ionians. They were both killers. But Zed was lovely as Jhin had never been (as Jhin had always wanted to be).  
  
“You will know true agony before I am done with you,” Zed snarled through a mouthful of blood. His teeth had not been white enough for Jhin’s tastes so Jhin had wrenched them out and pressed pearls into the gaps. Now they shone, blood-slicked and beautiful, whenever Zed spoke.  
  
“Yes, yes,” Jhin said, indulgent of his creation’s whims. He examined Zed’s tongue and decided it could stay. The garish red muscle looked well against those new white teeth - but Zed’s lips were too pale now. Jhin would have to redden them.  
  
He reached for his favorite filleting knife and told himself he took no pleasure in how Zed’s breath hitched as Jhin’s fingers closed around the hilt.   
  
He was an artist. This was his art.  
  
It was certainly nothing  _personal_.


	25. wolf talon is not happy (Talon/Vlad)

Wolf Talon does not like this. The steel collar around his throat is cold and worse, it’s so tight that if he tries to change into his wolf form, it chokes him! The chain keeps him in place so he can’t just jump out the window and run free. He paws at the chain with his long claws, pushing his fingers under the collar to protect his skin as he sets his feet against the wall and pushes back. His back strains as the chain snaps taut and Talon scrabbles at the steel chain with his claws. The scream of bone-on-metal is high and unpleasant; his ears go back and he whines with discomfort at the noise but keeps going.

Slivers of metal peel off and when the chain breaks, Talon howls with triumph before he sprints to the window and jumps onto the windowsil. For a moment, he balances there, gauging the distance to the lawn before and then he leaps. For a terrible, wonderful moment, he is free even of gravity and then he crashes to the ground and feels the snap of breaking bone.

It doesn’t matter. It’ll heal soon. 

On a broken leg and with the remnants of his chain still dangling down his chest, Talon sprints towards the garden walls. The grass bends familiarly under his bare feet and dirt clings to his claws; when he jumps up, the pattern of the bark on the tree branch is imprinted into his palms as he hauls himself up. He climbs higher and higher, scrambling up like the monkey his kind once was, and when he’s high enough, he launches himself off the tree to land on top of the garden wall.

Another downwards bound means another broken bone but the pain is drowned out by the fierce glee of being free. Talon lopes into the forest, loose hair flying behind him like a wolf tail, and howls for joy when he is once more in its cool shadows and green sanctuary.

(Later, later, when they drag him back before the white-haired human, he will be bleeding and bruised, will look up with lost eyes when the human cups his cheek and asks, “Was it worth it?” and he will say, “Yes.” Any amount of pain is worth it to be free.

But that is later and for now, Talon is happy and Talon is free.


End file.
